Does God Have A Dream For You?

In our homeschool lessons the other day, Gracie had to write sentences on what she would like to be when she grows up. So as any good mother would do, I was trying to get her thinking. I posed the question, "What is your dream?" Gracie looked at me rather puzzled. She didn't understand what I was asking. She shrugged her shoulders. "All I want to do is to be a cab driver," she said."Is that a big enough dream, mommy?"

For some reason, we don't seem to think of God as having a dream for each of us. But if you look at the story of the children of Israel, you may find that He does. According to Exodus 13:5, God had already promised to provide: "And when the Lord brings you into the land....which He promised and swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey..."

Moses was 80 years old when God reminded him of his purpose through, of all things, a flaming bush. God told him in Exodus 3:7-10, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters and oppressors; for I know their sorrows and sufferings and trials." Right there, God admitted to being fully aware of what a tough time His children were having. He was not oblivious to what was going on here on earth. "And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand and power of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a land good and large, a land flowing with milk and honey. Now behold, the cry of the Israelites has come to Me, and I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."

But Moses gave God every kind of excuse as to why he couldn't fulfill God's dream. Moses was caught up in the whys and the buts of life. Moses was thinking this dream to death. But God's dream for His children was much greater than Moses' excuses.

God's plan is not for you and I to sit idly by and trudge in our personal desert. He is wanting to prepare us for His dream on the other side of our trials. When we say 'woe is me, my life is falling apart and nothing seems to be going right', His dream can't be fulfilled because we become focused on ourself, our misery and pain and not on Him.

Paul had it right when he said in Philippians 3:12, "I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."

God has a purpose, yes...a dream, in seeing you come out the other side of this desert you've been wondering in. The last thing He plans to do is leave His own child to fend for himself in a lonely land. What parent would do such a thing? This personal desert is one of preparation for what's ahead so you can live the dream God created you to live once you come out of it.

I don't know about you, but I think I can see my desert a bit differently now as a dream instead of desolation!